Free Thieves I've Known by Tom Kealey

could hear the night bugs and the peepers chirping all along the shore. I looked out toward the mist. It was not much farther out now. I thought we might could make it there and then turn back. I was feeling all right. I felt like I could take my brother across the ocean if it needed doing. And I was glad to have Merrill there with us. It seemed to me like we were the only three people left in the world. Like all but near us was empty space. I looked at the two of them in the flash of lightning.
    â€œDaniel,” said Albert. He had his eyes closed. He was just a face and two shoulders in the water. “Do you remember a scarecrow?”
    I kicked under the water. “No.”
    â€œMa’s,” he said.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI told you about it though.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I don’t know anything about that.”
    There was another flash of lightning, close, I thought, and I said so. We listened to the thunder after.
    â€œIt ain’t that close,” said Albert. Then he looked over at Merrill. “Did I tell you?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe scarecrow.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” she said.
    â€œI’m drunk,” he said. “It was somebody close to me, but I can’t remember now.”
    â€œWho?” I said.
    â€œThe person I told.”
    â€œWell tell us.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to tell,” he said.
    â€œWe’re going to dunk you under.”
    He laughed at that, clutched onto my arm. “Don’t.”
    â€œTell it,” I said. “Then we’ll turn around.”
    We were into the mist now, and the air was warmer, though I could hear a breeze moving up along the shore and through the fields. I took a tighter grip across my brother’s chest.
    â€œIt had a face of corn,” he said. “She had this box for a head. The scarecrow I mean. It was just a couple sticks and some old clothes, and the box for a head, and Ma spent all night at the table, gluing this corn to the box. She made the eyes and a mouth. I don’t know. She just put the corn all over the head. Different shades of corn. She stayed up like she would. No sleep. Just gluing this face on the box. A kernel at a time.”
    â€œWhy’d she do that?” said Merrill.
    â€œCause she’s crazier than hell,” said Albert.
    I laughed. “She’s crazier than all get out.”
    But Albert wasn’t laughing. “You know what happened.”
    â€œWhat happened?” I said.
    He reached up and swatted at the mist. “I can’t see the sky through all this,” he said. “We could be under the water for all I knew. The birds came and ate all the corn off. It was gone by the afternoon. There was so many of them, they ripped the box right off the sticks. You could see them out there fighting over the head.”
    I thought it might be good to turn back now. I started to turn us, but they wouldn’t come.
    â€œMy mom had a garden just like that,” said Merrill.
    â€œWe’re not talking about your mom,” said Albert.
    â€œWhat are we talking about then?”
    â€œI didn’t say anything about any fucking garden. Why don’t you listen?”
    â€œYou’re drunk,” I said.
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo, you’re being rude.”
    â€œI’m trying to tell a fucking story, but I’ve lost it now.”
    â€œSorry,” said Merrill.
    â€œDrop me if you want,” he said.
    â€œNo one said anything about dropping you,” she said.
    â€œI can get drunk if I want. I’ve been through enough.”
    â€œNobody said you haven’t,” she said.
    â€œI haven’t been through shit,” he said.
    He laughed, and I had this feeling he was going to try to slip from us then. I thought about how crazy a drowning person can get.
    â€œLet’s go back,” I said.
    â€œYou hear that wind?” he said.
    We listened, and it was thunder we